JAEPO 2018 Part I – New Arcade Games Coming From Japan

Welcome to the first of various JAEPO 2018 threads. These may be a bit of a hodge podge of content, most of what I am seeing from the show coming via Twitter as Japanese attendees tend to favor the platform. Let’s start with news and go from there, in no particular order other than what I’ve come across in my feed.

As a note, the show was not open to the public for the first day, with that time a focus on “business meetings” with booths open mainly to specific clients. That said, it hasn’t stopped a ton of news from posting online.

Sega, Bandai Namco & Konami To Unify Their Card Systems This Summer

One issue with every company having their own card system is that it can become a little cumbersome – Sega has Aime, Namco has Banapassport, Konami has eAmusement Pass. Now the three companies are working to bring it all into one card system instead called Amusement IC. Hard to see where this will affect the Western market (not much due to the very limited exposure to these systems in the States and Europe) but it should be beneficial to game centers in Japan.

House Of The Dead Scarlet Dawn

Famitsu has an article about Sega’s new HOTD game, where a big stage event was held to discuss the upcoming arcade shooter. Here’s part of the photo op from that event:

The Famitsu article holds an interview (I think with these two ladies but I’m not 100% sure) but you have to copy and paste the text into an online translator since Google & Bing translators don’t directly translate secure pages. They talk about their opinion of horror games as well as the new Scarlet Dawn features; not sure there is any new-new information on top of what we’ve seen previously, focusing on the new recoil guns, the “4D effects” and elements like the destructible environments, saving other people and so on.

I imagine that lines will be long to play this one; Sega is also giving away limited edition HOTD face masks during the show.

Aka To Blue Type-R (Tanoshimasu, Exa-Arcadia)

The launch title for the new Exa-Arcadia hardware has drawn some big attention so far, namely from companies who are known for their shoot ’em ups. As a reminder, the English version of this will be called “Aka & Blue” instead of ‘To’

Shoot Away Pro (Bandai Namco)

Something we reported on the other day, we now have video of it in action. They decided to keep the graphical appearance old school on this one, which is a bit surprising. Putting the appeal more on the guns and the big screen display instead of the graphical prowess. This is launching in Japan next month; we’ll let you know if we hear about an international release. More details at 4Gamer.net

Starwing Paradox (Square Enix)

Square Enix’s newest futuristic battle arena game is popular despite it only having been the “business day”.